The American news media is in an uproar over storytelling by NBC Television’s news anchor Brian Williams, who considerably aggrandized his adventures in Iraq by telling viewers a Chinook helicopter he was aboard in 2003 had been hit by RPG fire and that he had been forced to spend a few terrified hours on the ground.
It was one of several expanded stories of Williams’ derring-do that got him suspended from his job for six months without pay. But as far as can be told, except for misreporting the 12-year-old story on the 2003 incident, Williams’ on-camera reporting, has been relatively truthful. It was that remark, plus embellishing his bravado on talk shows and on the lecture circuit that got him into trouble. And there seems to be a considerable amount of hypocrisy out of synch with reality or the magnitude of Williams’ transgressions.
Journalists who have risked their lives to cover wars – including 63 who died in Vietnam, four of them from NBC News, and the 166 killed in Iraq, for instance – have a right to be outraged. But there are plenty of other questions that US news consumers should be asking. The fact is that supposedly impartial major newspapers and television networks have been lying to their readers and viewers for decades. None of these news outlets suffer for sins that many – soldiers and civilians – have paid for with their lives.
It is a tradition of sorts that dates back at least to the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898, an apparent accident that was amplified in the popular media. That drove the US into war with Spain, eventually leading the hawks of the day in Washington to acquire Puerto Rico and the Philippines in addition to occupying Cuba. Full story...
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It was one of several expanded stories of Williams’ derring-do that got him suspended from his job for six months without pay. But as far as can be told, except for misreporting the 12-year-old story on the 2003 incident, Williams’ on-camera reporting, has been relatively truthful. It was that remark, plus embellishing his bravado on talk shows and on the lecture circuit that got him into trouble. And there seems to be a considerable amount of hypocrisy out of synch with reality or the magnitude of Williams’ transgressions.
Journalists who have risked their lives to cover wars – including 63 who died in Vietnam, four of them from NBC News, and the 166 killed in Iraq, for instance – have a right to be outraged. But there are plenty of other questions that US news consumers should be asking. The fact is that supposedly impartial major newspapers and television networks have been lying to their readers and viewers for decades. None of these news outlets suffer for sins that many – soldiers and civilians – have paid for with their lives.
It is a tradition of sorts that dates back at least to the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898, an apparent accident that was amplified in the popular media. That drove the US into war with Spain, eventually leading the hawks of the day in Washington to acquire Puerto Rico and the Philippines in addition to occupying Cuba. Full story...
Related posts:
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